The new European Union Centre of Excellence at York University is hosting its first graduate conference, “Ever Closer Union?/Union sans cesse plus étroite?” on March 11/12, 2010 in Toronto. The purpose is to showcase graduate student work and promote debate on topics relating to the European Union and EU-Canada relations.

The conference will be opened at noon on March 11th with a lecture by Maurizio Cellini, Chef, affaires économiques et commerciales, Délégation de l’Union européenne au Canada / Head, Economic and commercial affairs, Delegation of the European Union to Canada. Mr Cellini will speak on “Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Negotiations”. The lecture will take place in room 519, York Research Tower on York’s Keele campus (building #95 on the map found here) and all are welcome.

The remainder of the conference program can be found at the bottom of this post.

This bilingual conference is organized by York graduate students and faculty and aims to include contributions from graduate students in various disciplines such as law, political science, public & international affairs, gender studies, economics, public administration, geography, history and sociology, among others, and from universities across Canada and beyond.

For more information, please contact <euconf@yorku.ca> (CONTINUE READING)

The Honourable Roy MacLaren

The EUCE York and the IMBA program of the Schulich School of Business are pleased to present the Inaugural Canada-EU Business Lecture on Wednesday, March 10th from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm. This will be given by the Honourable Roy MacLaren, Co-Chair of the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business, and the topic will be “Canada-EU Relations – Prospects for a Free Trade Agreement”.

The lecture will take place in room N105, Schulich School of Business buildling (#42 on the map found here) and all are welcome to attend but asked to RSVP to <euce@yorku.ca>.

Roy MacLaren has had a distinguished career. Among his many achievements are twelve years in the Canadian foreign service including postings in Hanoi, Prague and the United Nations, thirteen years as a Member of the Canadian Parliament during which time he served as Minister for International Trade and a stint as Canada’s High Commissioner in the United Kingdom. He has served on the boards of a number of multinational corporations and is currently the Co-Chair of the Canada Europe Roundtable for Business.

Christian Knirsch

CCGES is pleased to present a talk by Christian Knirsch (PhD candidate, Universität Mannheim, CCGES Resident Research Associate) at which he will present an overview of his dissertation project examining conceptions of the veil in British and American novels and short stories from four epochs in literary history, Romanticism/Transcendentalism, Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism.

“Ever since the Enlightenment, Western philosophy has been dominated by the ocularcentric presumption that seeing equals knowing. If seeing equals knowing, the veil is not only a symbol of mediated vision but also a symbol of reality conceptions. My hypothesis is that the depiction of the veil in literary texts varies in accordance with changes in the respective contemporary conceptions of reality which, in turn, are always a result of a mutual exchange between the natural sciences and the humanities. By focusing on the veil as a visual as well as an epistemological and ontological metaphor, I contend that a new perspective on several canonised novels and short stories of British and American literature can be gained.”

Time: 12:30-2:00 pm
Location: 764 York Research Tower

On Monday, March 1st, CCGES will host a screening of “Who is Deutschland?”, a documentary film which explores German identity formation against the backdrop of the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament held in the country. The film’s creative team of Boaz Beeri (MA candidate, York Film), Jon Medow and Abraham Singer will be on hand for a discussion after the showing which will take place from 2:30 – 4:30 pm in room 743, York Research Tower

Location: Room 743, York Research Tower
Time: 2:30-4:00 pm

The European Union Centre of Excellence at York and the Jean Monnet Chair in European Integration are pleased to present a discussion with Prof. Bruce Morrison (University of Western Ontario) on the theme of “The EU in the Context of the Study of the State and Regime Formation”. This event will take place on Tuesday, March 2nd from 11:00 am to noon in Glendon Hall, Room 219 (The venue for this event is on York’s Glendon Campus and is building # 16 on the map found here).

Bruce Morrison (PhD Harvard) is assistant professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. He edited Transnational Democracy in Critical and Comparative Perspective, and is currently writing on the relationship between state formation and democratization in European history.

All are welcome.